A group workshop from Code for America fellows at UX Week 2012.

1. Designing for Civic Action:
A Collaborative Design Session
with Code for America
Angel Kittiyachavalit, Elizabeth Hunt, Emily Wright, Sheba Najmi

2. Hi, We're Code for America
A new non-profit that brings the technology
and process of startup culture to city
governments to make them more transparent,
open, and efficient.
● 8 cities
● 26 fellows
● 262 public open-source projects

3. Angel

4. Emily

5. Liz

6. Sheba

7. Agenda
9:00 - 9:30 Overview
9:30 - 10:00 Explain design challenge
10:00 - 10:10 Break
10:10 - 11:25 Work on challenge in small teams
11:25 - 11:35 Break
11:35 - 12:30 Discussion and Q&A

8. Today We'll Be Talking About
● Opportunities for UX in the gov and
civic spaces
● Observations and insights we've gained
through our fellowship
● Defining the new practice of civic
engagement

9. THE OPPORTUNITIES

10. Government Interfaces

11. Government Computers

12. Department of Motor Vehicles

13. Bus Signage

14. Missing Sidewalks

15. OBSERVATIONS + INSIGHTS

16. Observations
● We don't often have user research or input
to guide us
● We often go from sketches to design or
straight to code
● We work in pairs (or threes) on a team —
designers also code and test
● We are always measuring and evaluating

17. Insights
● Build to explore ideas and tactics
● Experimentation as process
● JFDI (Just F***ing Do It)
● Open Source is great!
● UX people are needed

18. THE CHALLENGE:
CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

19. Why Civic Engagement?
● Cities are interested because civic
engagement can help crowd-source tasks
with fewer city resources
● It's such a new space that the rules aren't
defined. Help us define them today!

23. What We Want To Do Today
Come up with tactics to improve civic
engagement
● How can we encourage people to help out
the city by taking responsibility for a piece
of city infrastructure?
● How can we keep people interested in
doing that over a sustained period of time?

25. Feature Questions To Consider
● Incentives: Do people need incentives? What kind?
● Fun: How do we make the activity not feel like work?
● Social proof: Can we leverage this need?
● Reminders: How do we keep people engaged over a
period of time?
● Urgency: How do we create a sense of urgency without
being burdensome or communicating too often?
● Recognition: How can we recognize people who
participate?

26. Experience Questions To Consider
● Acquisition: How should people learn about Adopta?
● Activation: What things will drive people to sign up?
● Retention: What things will drive people to continue
participating?
● Referral: How can we leverage existing users? What
could we use that leverage to do?
● Revenue: What types of business models might exist
for Adopta?

27. Idea-starters
● Take away the important parts
● What would your closest friend do?
● Make it more sensual
● Change specifics to ambiguities
● Make what's perfect more human
● Voice your suspicions
● Use an old idea
● Faced with a choice, do both
● Use "unqualified" people

28. 10 min Break

29. Design Challenge - 1.25 hours

30. Discussion + Q&A - 1 hour

31. Thank You
Angel - angel@codeforamerica.org // @angelk
Emily - emily@codeforamerica.org // @emilyville
Liz - liz@codeforamerica.org // @ezoehunt
Sheba - sheba@codeforamerica.org // @snajmi